Page:A Child of the Jago - Arthur Morrison.djvu/136

 be deemed fit enough. How much of the limp was due to yesterday's disaster and how much to to-day's beer Dicky could not judge. But there seemed little reason to look for a long delay before the fight. As Dicky turned away a man pushed a large truck round the corner from Edge Lane, and on the footpath beside it walked the parson, calm as ever, with black clothes and tall hat, whole and unsoiled. He had made himself known in the Jago in course of that afternoon. He had traversed it from end to end, street by street, and alley by alley. His self-possession, his readiness, his unbending firmness, abashed and perplexed the Jagos, and his appearance just as the police had left could but convince them that he must have some mysterious and potent connexion with the force. He had attempted very little in the way of domiciliary visiting, being content for the time to see his parish and speak